Naturalism,clear thinking and our future
Everything inItsRightPlace.mp3The physical world is causally closed. The statement is so broad and yet so pointed that understanding the implications in their entirety is impossible. Yet the meaning of the statement needs to be understood, and by everyone. We have all managed to apply in our own beliefs some parts of the tenet but, unfortunately not all. If we were to understand and apply all implications of that one single statement “The physical world is causally closed” our entire attitude to life, the planet and many of the choices we make would be radically different.
The statement that the physical world is causally closed needs some explanation. In essence it means that all of the phenomena we see in the world are caused by other things we find in the world and that the effects of all physical causes will be found in the world. This supposition is taken from the finding that the total of energy and momentum have always been conserved wherever they have been measured.
A more prosaic example comes from Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier who found that in chemical reaction matter may change its state but it’s total mass will remain the same. Rust is a good example, when iron rusts it also gets heavier because iron and oxygen combine.
The word natural has a long history and has come to be used in many contexts. Advocates of herbal remedies cite that their medicines are natural, people talk about homosexuality as unnatural and we talk about ‘the natural course of action’. However, understanding physical closure permits us to say that each of these statements are nonsense if they are taken even remotely literally. ‘Natural’ as term has its origins in Latin and Greek and roughly in Middle English was used to mean ‘in accordance with nature‘. It is in the sense that the word is used in Lucretius’s epic poem ’De Rerum Natura‘ that it is used here. That is as a part of the property that things posses by virtue of existence and not as a moral quantifier or proof of goodness.
Not only is it the case that there are a great number of poisons in the ‘natural’ world, it is also the case that it is literally impossible for homosexuality to be unnatural. More broadly speaking, given physical closure all phenomena that we see are natural.
The natural sciences ought to encompass the investigation of all phenomena. However, they have come to mean (through the correct application of the term) the physical sciences (otherwise known as the Naturwissenschaften as opposed to the Geisteswissenschaften, or social sciences). In essence however, the approach employed by all sciences can be called naturalistic and within the present conception of the universe all of the phenomena contained within it are natural.
If everything said thus far is true then it is meaningful to make statements like ‘photography is natural’ and ‘pollution is natural’ also. Most people, will have a harder time digesting statements like these as opposed to the statement ‘homosexuality is unnatural’.
The difficulty lies in an innate bias. It also highlights our need to guard ourselves from nonsense. The bias comes not just from ambiguity about the word natural but the fact that we have come to assume that pairing the word ‘natural’ with a statement gives that statement moral significance. That is in effect the nonsense which I refer to.
The point is that everything that does occur, occurs in the world, if it occurs in the world then it is natural. The flip-side of the coin is that just because something is natural (or can be found in nature) it doesn’t make it either right or give it any special moral significance. It was a natural event that wiped out the dinosaur. That fact doesn’t make the potential extinction of the human race any more palatable, I happen to be quite attached to the interests of humanity.
There are a number of implications of the discussion so far that ought to be considered. In connexion with this post however, my interest is in the world that we live in.
It is no platitude to say that wherever we are we obey the laws of physics. Gravity is a pervasive feature in all of our lives despite the fact that most of us take little time to notice the effect it has on us. But existing in the natural world is not just about obeying laws such as the law of gravity. The natural world is as much about living in a complex system such as our environment. What is more the point about natural phenomena is that we are embedded within those systems and are component part of them.
In effect we are a part of a much wider system and that system houses us. However, much like gravity we seem to be too well acquainted with our environment. So well acquainted in fact that it doesn’t seem to make significant difference to us if we destroy it in piecemeal fashion. Of course we don’t experience a great deal of pollution. Nor do we experience the effects of pollution immediately. Environmentalism is concerned with a concept and by virtue of being a concept it is far removed from us.
But that doesn’t change that fact that the destruction of the system that we live in could be the destruction event of our species. By extension this also suggests the possibility that another species one day in the far future will refer to us in making the same arguments. As human beings we have used our imaginations to great use. From migrating bands of hominid to static cities populated by millions of people living not on subsistence but beyond necessity our species has achieved a lot in a short space. However, it is a part of that achievement that we can see that our actions now have, within the closed physical system that is the world we live, far reaching consequences.
The point is this: Given that we live in the natural environment, (and I see no option but giving ourselves to that fact) a certain clarity of thought is required about our lives within that context. So far we have allowed ourselves an incredible amount of fuzzy thinking on the subject. However, if we are to save the planet we have to divorce ourselves from all of the immediate luxuries of existence (such as gravity) and understand that as necessary as gravity is, so are the effects of our actions on the future of our species.
We are unfortunately predisposed to being told what we want to hear from politicians (lest we don’t vote for them). However, in order that a concerted effort is made by all, that effort will have to be concerted and universal. That means saying a number of unpopular things and effort on all our parts. It means that developing countries will have to develop within the context of change that is uncertain and in developed countries that incentive will have to be on the part of survival. It is after all survival that we are after and survival can only take part within a physical system that we know can sustain us. That system is closed and that leaves a great deal of responsibility on our shoulders.
Tags: analytical, Ideas, nature, physical world, society, world
Your point is well taken. I have read more than one account that suggests that there is a cross-dimensionality between this (physical) universe and a universe of mentality.
However, that doesn't exclude the possibility that the each universe is contained within a system that is physically closed (albeit for all of the), and that requires better definition of what we mean by physicality (which seems to be vague in and of itself).
That seems to be less an empirical question as one of logic + science + reason. In addition there are a plethora of theories (string theory included that would allow for that possibility.
As far as Spinoza is concerned I don't think (and would be glad to be shown this is wrong) that there is anything in the argument that contradicts Spinoza (with the difference that for me morality is rational as opposed to given by nature). I think the naturalistic fallacy holds in any instance in which natural phenomena are used to make moral judgments.
Again, and as always I think the value here would be a counterpoint that I can't think of at present. I hope though that you can return and continue the discussion!!!
I would be more than glad to know your thoughts!
Although I agree with the sentiment you express here regrading the meaning of natrual, I'm not sure that I subscribe to your first premise that the pysical word is causaly closed. It may be that there is a spinozian (sic) duality occuring, or that that other dimensions contain nonphysical entities that interact with our the physical universe subtley. This is pretty far out, but I don't think such positions should be dissmissed out of hand.
Beyond that though I whole heartedly agree (although I'm not sure why causal closure needs to be here to support your argument). Natrual is such a moraly loaded term that it has little value. I have always thought that where humans to ultimatly destroy themselves, would this be moraly bad? Surely morals are a human concept (although not if you are a deep ecologist!), so by destroying ourselves we destroy the criteria of assesment of events in moral terms.
Really nice article – one of my major bugbears well expressed. Thanks!
PS. apologies for spelling – I is dylectic!
Alex, I am not sure if we're in disagreement, Once one starts to understand culture as a construct it becomes clear that Nature is part of culture, it is a human construct just as toasters are. As a result it cannot be the opposite of culture, nature is a culture. In a Foucauldian sense it is a discourse, a set of rules and assumptions that allow us to understand the world.
Outside of this line of thinking, and in a day-to-day context, nature is the thing that links us, that creates us and is where we return when we die. It existed before philosophy and will exist after it, it is our way of understanding it that changes. Our understandings are permeated with power and moralistic bias, that's unavoidable, that is culture.
Nyloncube, you make a more than reasonable point. One that is more than difficult to circumvent. However, I would draw a distinction between what we mean when we talk about nature and nature in the universal sense (which is the sense that I mean). It is morality attached to nature that i have an issue with.
I agree discourse occurs within a nature, or at least a natural context. However, I also think that someone like Merleau-Ponty makes the point in his phenomenology that we are embedded within the context of nature aside from the noral connotations of everyday discourse.
In that sense I think that the order of the terms is important. For me culture exists within a natural context (as you mention) and it is that context within which the discourse is contained. In that sense discourse must obey some of the principles of nature or act as an extension of it.
For me the point is that there is no construct/entitythat can possibly exist outside of nature in the sense that the proponents of the naturwissenschaften would have it. Even if we were to take a hermeneutic approach I would think that the discourse within which the process occurs is a natural one in the sense that it must at some level obey the laws of the natural world. The point being that in any of the possible worlds nature is a necessarily (a priori) position to maintain. We might eliminate tables, chairs and toasters which we can do without, but we can't do without the concpet of nature?
Again, I would be grateful for your thoughts!!!
I've always had trouble with the term natural. People seemed to be confused as to whether we are meant to be more like animals or less. Nature is the opposite of culture, the logical conclusion of these arguments being that all culture is 'unnatural'. This gets us nowhere!
Environmental disaster is simply too huge a concept for people to engage with. I don't find talk of sea levels rising and storms occuring helpful. It's better to appeal to people (including myself) in terms of what we can comprehend. Eg., your children will never eat cod, or, "Daddy, what were trees like?". More grounded approaches will win over sceptics.
Having said that, the only solution in a massive scale re-alignment of the way our systems operate. Over consumption must stop.
Nyloncube, thank you for a clearly well thought comment. I agree that more often than not more grounded approaches will make the difference to skeptics
However, I don't agree that nature and culture are opposed, in fact i think that any permutation of culture is also an example of nature. I think that it is a post-empiricist perspective to divide the world into the natural and the human. For me they are one and the same thing, albeit existing at different levels.
The point of the piece was really to show that everything that occurs in the world is a sub-set of natural phenomena, be that toasters, flowers or oil companies, they are all natural in as much as they exist in nature, can be studied naturally and as far as we know exist in this world, of which all things are natural. I was less interested in making a 'strong' argument for environmentalism (though I did want tomake one clear) than for showing that nature is not only a pervasive feature but that if that is the case, and in my own mind it is, we achieve little by ignoring that fact.
I would be glad for further comments (especially if you think I am making a clear mistake). I appreciate that what I am saying goes a little against the grain but, I also hope that will add to the possibility of debate.
I am definitely bookmarking this page and sharing it with my friends.